Our organizational leadership cultural mindset has shown deficiencies since last few decades. Reasons of such behavioral patterns are not known to me (rather not expose here) for now, but, surely it implies some serious hidden peculiar ‘insecurities & egoist’ issues. The few organizational design structures who blessed with such issues have shown market leadership and more importantly, ‘Sustenance’ to remain as ‘Pioneers’ and not as followers and laggards.

1. COLLECTIVE GENIUS - Synopsis
This article is a remembrance of wonderful work done at Harvard Business School
by Linda A. Hill (2014). I have refreshed my memory and collected my lost thoughts
(some) to re-generate its value.
The context and content has a universal value but my intent here is to address the
mindset of majority of Pakistani leadership – Corporate or Public. Names are
different but implied equally on both.
Our organizational leadership cultural mindset has shown deficiencies since last few
decades. Reasons of such behavioral patterns are not known to me (rather not
expose here) for now, but, surely it implies some serious hidden peculiar
‘insecurities & egoist’ issues. The few organizational design structures who blessed
with such issues have shown market leadership and more importantly, ‘Sustenance’
to remain as ‘Pioneers’ and not as followers and laggards.
Our leadership will vehemently try to refute my claims but the evidence cannot be
denied – looking critically at the productivity of our decisions making structures in
different domains and also where we are in comparison to international standards.
Where, the success is driven by ‘Innovation’. The survival and success in current
global scenario comes from ‘Agile Innovation’ and strategic agility.
To many of us the term Collective Genius will seem a lot weird. Actually it has a quite
an oxymoronic feeling to it for most of the managers of today’s world. The reason
behind this feeling is that we are obsessed with the idea of the ‘solo genius’. We
believe in that one great man phenomenon where a hero emerges breaking through
all the odds and barriers.
Of course, the history is over- flowing with such heroes. The examples of Bill Gates
and Michael Gordon are not hidden from anyone. However, the history also reminds
of corporations like Apple, Google and Pixar. The question arises that what is the
most common thing about these three organizations? The answer is that these
organizations didn’t become successful based on the idea of ‘one-man leadership’.
Warren Bennis, who was referred to as ‘the dean of leadership gurus ‘by the Forbes
Magazine in 1996, in his book “Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative
Collaboration” discusses and defends the idea of ‘great groups’ instead of ‘the great
man’.

2. Many of us believe that Steve Jobs was the leader of Apple and there is no doubt to
that but what we forget is that behind that very first easy to use computer for the
non-experts, there was a whole team of people and not only just a leader leading that
team. This computer would not have been possible without the effort of even a single
member; no matter how minute his task had been.
Similarly, we can discuss the example of Google. The Google systems infrastructure
group consists of a thousand people lead by Bill Coughran known as the ‘engine
room’. This engine room is what makes a whole universe of information available at
the tips of our fingers round the clock. This feat won’t be possible if the collaboration
of even one of the thousand members is ignored.
Next, we have Pixar, which has made a name out of producing successful animated
movies one after another. Many of us, when we watch these animated movies and the
characters within them, rarely think about the effort put behind the making of the
appearance of one character or even a small movement carried out by a single
character. However, behind all these characters and the converting of all their
movements into single movie, requires the collective effort of several animators.
Now, after studying the above three examples, we can say that while a solo genius is
not worth ignoring, however, it is clear that much more can be accomplished by
collaborative effort. This collaborative effort is what we call the collective genius.
This is the introduction of the idea that a team of leaders, instead of a single leader,
all having their own slice of genius, can bring change like never before.
Talking about change, we come to the topic of innovation. The theory of collective
genius helps us generate a link between leadership and innovation. Innovation is
widely believed to be fun and full of creativity but in reality, coming up with
something new and creative requires hard work and probably years of different
insights merging to form a single idea. Now, consider the ‘great group’ theory by
Bennis, imagine what a diverse group of people, each one with their own genius
insight, could manage to do. Of course, one genius clashed with another could create
tension and organizations are always about minimizing differences but often
forgotten that innovation is the integration of ideas. In case of confrontations, the
leader should be present to provide an environment that supports respect of
different ideas and improvement based on each other’s inputs. This environment can
be provided by establishing rules of engagement, shared values and awareness of
purpose of the group.Eureka moments are sometimes achieved by combining both
option A and option B.

3. In her book ‘Collective Genius’, Linda A. Hill, argues that a group of people should not
only be willing to innovate but also have the ability to innovate. To create this ability,
the group needs three qualities as following:
Creative Abrasion: The ability to come up with ideas through debate
Creative Agility: The ability to test, experiment and adjust
Creative Resolution: The ability of deciding to combine opposing ideas
The author also discusses the need to develop leaders that can create collective
genius. A leader of innovation will not see himself as direction setter but the creator
of an environment in which his team can innovate.
Bennis admits that being part of a ‘great group’ is not easy. He says that people often
feel depressed after the purpose has been achieved. However, he says that in all the
interviews he conducted for his book, not one person regretted being part the group
because it is impossible to forget the thrill and the excitement that was present while
each person performed their part in moving towards their mutual purpose.
He gives the example of the makers of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, saying that
none of them remembers spending long days worrying about who got credit for what
but instead remembers the thrill of pushing boundaries and achieving something
that had never been done before. In ‘great groups’ the leader is treated as an equal to
his team instead of being the possessor of unique knowledge and skills. Bennis
concludes that genius is rare but the act of sharing insights with fellow geniuses is
even rarer.
The following quote by Kenneth Hartley Blanchard, who is an American author and
management expert, concludes the discussion over collective genius:
"None of us is as smart as all of us."
Farooq Omar